074 


AUGHTER-HOUSE 
REFORM 

THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  THE 
OPPOSING  FORCES 

I 

THE  PACKING  INTERESTS 

n 

THE  DEFENDERS  OF  THE  HEBREW  METHOD 


BY 


FRANCIS  H.  ROWLEY 


PRESIDENT    OP   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   SOCIETY    FOB   THE   PREVENTION 
OF    '  ANIMALS.    AND    THE    AMERICAN  j 

HUMANE   EDUCATION    SOCIETY 


A  PAMPHLET  PREPARED  ESPECIALLY  FOR  THE 
HUMANE  SOCIETIES  OF  THE  UNITED   STATES 


lifornia 

onal 

tity 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS.  SOCIETY  FOR  THE  PREVENTION 

OF  CRUELTY  TO  ANIMALS 

BOSTON,  U.  S.  A. 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE  REFORM 

IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  AND 
THE  OPPOSING  FORCES 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE 
REFORM 

IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  THE 
OPPOSING  FORCES 


II 

THE  DEFENDERS  OF  THE  HEBREW  METHOD 


BY 

FRANCIS  H.  ROWLEY 


A  PAMPHLET  PREPARED  ESPECIALLY  FOR  THE 
HUMANE  SOCIETIES  OF  THE   UNITED   STATES 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS  SOCIETY  FOR  THE  PREVENTION 

OF  CRUELTY  TO  ANIMALS 

BOSTON,  U.  S.  A. 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE   REFORM 
IN  THE   UNITED   STATES 


I 


T  requires  but  a  moment's  thought  to  discover 
that,  with  more  than  a  hundred  million  four-footed 
creatures  annually  being  driven  to  the  shambles  of 
the  United  States,  the  amount  of  needless  suffer- 
ing there  endured  must  many  times  outweigh  the 
pain  inflicted  elsewhere  upon  defenseless  animal 
life. 

The  need  for  reform  in  the  methods  of  slaughter 
is  felt  not  only  by  humanitarians  in  this  country, 
it  is  growing  wherever  men  and  women  are  hearing 
the  call  of  a  worthier  civilization.  In  England  the 
matter  has  been  forced  upon  the  consideration  of 
Parliament  till  a  commission,  appointed  by  that  body, 
has  reported  with  very  positive  recommendations  in 
favor  of  more  humane  methods.  In  France,  at  a 
recent  congress  of  animal  protective  societies,  resolu- 
tions were  passed  urging  upon  the  state  the  need  of 
immediate  action  to  change  conditions  in  all  French 
abattoirs.  Those  familiar  with  the  situation  know 
that  for  years  Germany,  Switzerland,  Denmark, 
Sweden,  and  Finland  have  been  revolutionizing  the 
whole  system  of  animal  slaughter  with  a  view  to 
reducing  the  sufferings  of  the  animals  destroyed. 

[1] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

It  seems  incomprehensible  that  the  societies  for 
the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals  in  our  own  land 
have  left  this  vital  question  so  largely  untouched. 
Yes,  I  grant  we  have  discussed  it,  passed  resolutions, 
affirmed  that  we  were  about  to  do  something  in 
dead  earnest,  but  there  it  has  ended.  No  united, 
resolute,  organized  action  has  been  taken.  We  go 
back  from  our  annual  meetings,  and  once  more  our 
local  problems  engross  our  attention,  and  meanwhile 
the  hundred  millon  cattle,  sheep,  and  swine  move 
on  night  and  day  to  their  hells  of  pain  and  torture. 
Yet  we  exist  for  their  protection,  for  theirs  as  well 
as  for  that  of  the  horse,  the  dog,  the  cat,  the  bird. 
Because  these  latter  are  daily  about  us  and  we  see 
them,  they  largely  monopolize  our  care.  Because 
we  never  go  to  the  slaughter-house,  never  see  the 
look  of  terror  in  pleading  eyes,  are  never  startled  by 
the  gushing  streams  of  hot  blood  pouring  from  opened 
throats,  nor  hear  the  dying  moans;  because  we  only 
eat  the  carcasses  of  the  wretched  victims  as  their 
flesh  comes  upon  our  tables,  therefore,  "out  of  sight, 
out  of  mind,"  they  are  left  to  their  doom. 

Few  of  us  apparently  realize  that  no  man  has  the 
moral  right  to  touch  a  piece  of  meat  when  once  his 
eyes  have  been  opened  to  the  cruelties  accompanying 
the  slaughter  of  food  animals,  unless  he  is  doing  what 
he  can  to  make  those  cruelties  less.  Vegetarian  or  no 
vegetarian,  I  am  bound  by  every  principle  of  justice 
to  see  that  these  lowlier  forms  of  life  sacrificed  for  food 
are  not  subjected  to  a  moment's  needless  pain. 

[2] 


IN     THE     UNITED     STATES 


Beyond  all  this,  our  societies,  knowing  as  they 
must  of  the  conditions  existing  where  animals  are 
slaughtered,  and  knowing  how  these  conditions 
affect  the  meat  that  at  last  reaches  the  public, 
are  bound  to  tell  the  public  what  they  know.  If 
meat  is  made  unwholesome,  if  it  undergoes  toxic 
changes  because  of  the  fright  experienced  or  the 
sufferings  inflicted  at  the  time  of  slaughter,  and  no 
one  denies  this  any  longer,  then  in  the  interests  of 
the  public  health,  we  are  under  the  burden  of  a 
heavy  obligation  to  set  these  facts  before  an  unin- 
formed, often  indifferent  and  unsuspecting  public. 

THE  SITUATION 

Let  us  look  the  facts  frankly  in  the  face.  In  spite 
of  nearly  fifty  years  of  humane  societies  in  the  United 
States  our  methods  of  slaughter  are  still  substantially 
what  they  were  in  the  days  when  men  like  Henry 
Bergh  and  George  T.  Angell  were  arousing  public 
attention  to  the  claims  of  animal  life.  Our  small 
country  slaughter  pens,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific,  are  abodes  of  cruelty,  and  the  majority  of 
them  a  disgrace  to  the  communities  that  tolerate 
them.  I  do  not  mean  that  all  butchers  are  cruel 
men,  or  that  all  small  slaughter-houses  are  equally 
filthy.  I  mean  simply  that  the  vast  majority  of 
butchers  are  doing  just  as  their  fathers  did,  killing 
cattle,  sheep,  and  swine  under  conditions  that  are 
outrageously  unsanitary  and  that  involve  an  untold 

[3] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

amount  of  unnecessary  suffering.  The  larger  cattle 
when  felled  by  ax  or  hammer  are  still  so  handled  as 
to  make  necessary  again  and  again  repeated  blows 
to  drop  them;  sheep,  calves,  swine,  are  almost 
universally  strung  up  by  the  heels  and  killed  by  the 
knife  that  is  plunged  into  the  throat,  left  to  bleed 
slowly  to  death,  no  attempt  having  been  made  to 
render  them  unconscious  by  a  blow  that  would  have 
stunned  them  before  blood  was  drawn. 

If  you  turn  from  the  small  slaughter-house  of  ten 
thousand  villages  and  towns  to  the  vast  establish- 
ments where,  by  aid  of  skilfully  perfected  machinery, 
animals  are  rushed  by  the  hundreds  an  hour  from  the 
entrance  of  the  abattoir  to  the  refrigerating  rooms, 
where  their  steaming  carcasses  swing  down  the  in- 
terminable line,  there  the  same  methods  with  regard 
to  the  smaller  animals  are  pursued,  and  millions  of 
sheep,  with  what  an  English  laureate  speaks  of  as 
their  "half  human  bleat,"  and  more  millions  of  calves 
and  swine,  linger  through  moments  of  dying  torment 
and  contortion  that  might  all  be  saved  them  had  the 
men  and  women  for  whom  they  die,  moved  by  justice 
and  humanity,  demanded  that  they  should  have 
been  rendered  unconscious  before  being  caught  up 
by  the  revolving  machinery  and  carried  on  to  face 
the  dripping  knife  that  is  driven  into  their  throats. 

I  shall  not  discuss  the  question  of  how  much  these 
sentient  creatures  realize  the  meaning  of  the  condi- 
tions amid  which  they  perish.  Does  the  sight  and 
smell  of  blood  terrify  them?  Do  the  dying  struggles 

[4] 


IN     THE     UNITED     STATES 


of  their  fellows  which  have  just  preceded  them,  and 
which  they  have  witnessed,  fill  them  with  some  name- 
less horror?  Do  the  startled  eyes,  the  dilated  nos- 
trils, the  panting  sides  indicate  anything  more  than 
such  fear  as  any  strange  situation  would  inspire? 
Debate  that  as  you  will.  No  man  knows  what  goes 
on  within  that  brain  that  has  no  other  means  of 
self-expression  than  the  outward  and  physical  signs 
of  what  in  men  we  should  call  terror  and  pain. 
Perhaps  it  is  true  that  we  project  too  much  into  the 
poor  dumb  creature  our  own  feelings  and  sensi- 
tiveness; still,  in  the  name  of  common  decency,  and 
prompted  by  the  first  impulses  of  humanity,  it  would 
seem  as  if  the  ordinary  human  being  would  feel  com- 
pelled to  cry  out  against  every  act  and  process  of  the 
slaughter-house  that  forces  these  victims  of  man's 
appetite  to  witness  the  dying  struggles  of  their  fel- 
lows, or  to  meet  their  own  fate  under  the  stress  of 
any  needless  cruelty  or  fear. 

THE  GOAL 

As  to  the  goal  to  be  sought  in  our  efforts  at  reform 
there  is  no  room  for  argument.  That  goal  is  as  clear 
as  the  sun  at  noonday  in  a  cloudless  sky.  It  is  free 
from  complications.  It  admits  of  no  debate.  It  is 
direct  and  simple.  It  is  this,  —  the  rendering  un- 
conscious by  some  humane  device  of  every  food  animal 
before  the  drawing  of  blood. 

In  the  twentieth  century,  in  a  land  boasting  a 
[5] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

Christian  civilization,  one  might  imagine  that  to 
suggest  such  a  reform  would  be  to  secure  it  at  once. 
Indeed,  a  genuinely  civilized  Christian  from  some 
tropical  clime  where,  as  in  Ovid's  Golden  Age,  men 

"  Fed  on  fruit, 
Nor  durst  with  bloody  meals  their  mouths  pollute," 

would  wonder  that  the  inhumanities  that  make  such 
a  reform  necessary  had  not  long  ago  been  abolished 
as  remnants  of  a  barbarous  past.  On  the  contrary, 
the  winning  of  this  goal  of  which  we  have  spoken  will 
prove  to  be  one  of  the  most  difficult  tasks  to  which 
the  humane  societies  of  the  new  world  have  ever 
set  their  hands. 


[6] 


THE  OPPOSING  FORCES 


I.     THE  GREAT  PACKING  HOUSES 

From  two  sources  the  opposition  will  be  bitter 
and  persistent.  The  slaughter  of  our  food  animals 
has  become  a  business  of  gigantic  proportions. 
Carried  on  for  the  most  part  entirely  for  the  money 
there  is  in  it,  it  is  managed  with  as  little  regard  for 
the  sensibilities  or  capacity  for  suffering  of  the 
animals  involved  as  if  they  were  so  many  car- 
loads of  ore  on  the  way  to  the  smelter.  In  this 
business  time  is  money.  The  delay  of  a  second 
in  transforming  each  living  creature,  like  a  calf 
or  a  sheep,  into  a  carcass  ready  for  the  market, 
when  these  defenseless  beings  are  slaughtered  at  so 
many  carloads  an  hour,  means  dollars  cut  out  of 
dividends.  It  is  too  much  to  ask  the  modern  packer, 
who  measures  success  and  business  skill  by  the 
standard  of  profits,  to  retard  the  flow  of  dollars  back 
into  the  treasury  of  his  corporation  by  even  a  few 
hours  a  week  out  of  consideration  for  anything  so 
trivial  as  the  alleged  sufferings  of  "driven  cattle." 
Against  this  reform  will  be  marshaled  the  millions 
of  money  invested  in  vast  packing  houses  and  the 
influence  of  their  opulent  oflScers  and  stockholders. 
These  forces  will  confront  us  in  our  legislatures.  They 

[7] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE    REFORM 

will  issue  orders  for  our  defeat  in  Congress.  I  see 
now  a  room  in  a  certain  state  house  where  at  a  hearing 
upon  a  bill  that  sought  this  reform  there  sat,  in  a  long 
row  over  against  the  two  or  three  champions  of  the 
measure,  representatives  of  every  packing  house  in 
the  state  and  their  paid  attorneys  who  sought  to 
thwart  the  attempts  to  secure  such  legislation  as 
would  compel  the  adoption  of  humane  methods  in 
slaughter. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  arrogance  and  conscious- 
ness of  power  of  the  great  interests  arrayed  against 
us,  I  recall  that,  at  the  hearing  before  the  Committee 
on  Interstate  and  Foreign  Commerce  relative  to  the 
Immature  Calf  Bill,  which  was  held  in  Washington 
in  April,  1912,  a  gentleman  from  Texas,  representing 
the  Cattle  Raisers'  Association,  began  his  argument 
against  the  bill  by  saying:  "I  wish  first  to  read  a 
letter  from  the  President  of  the  Association  for  which 
I  am  attorney  and  in  whose  behalf  I  appear."  l  This 
letter,  signed  by  the  President  of  the  Cattle  Raisers' 
Association  of  Texas,  contained  these  words,  "I 
have  just  wired  Congressman  Smith  to  throttle  the 
bill  prohibiting  calves  under  six  weeks  of  age  being 
shipped."  Legislation  must  mean  much  in  any  land 
where  any  corporation  for  its  own  ends  can  send  its 
orders  to  Washington  to  have,  independently  of  its 
merits,  a  measure  "throttled." 

1  Many  of  these  corporations  or  associations  keep  their  paid  attorneys 
in  Washington  during  the  sitting  of  Congress,  or  so  long  as  necessary,  to 
oppose  all  legislation  that  might  interfere  with  then*  business. 

[8] 


IN     THE     UNITED     STATES 


How  are  we  to  win  in  this  campaign?  We  have 
little  money  at  our  command.  We  cannot  afford  to 
keep  trained  lobb yists  at  Washington.  Our  appeal 
must  be  to  the  moral  sense  of  the  nation.  We  must 
create  at  last,  by  agitation  and  discussion,  by  the 
repeated  rehearsal  of  the  facts  in  all  their  brutality, 
a  public  opinion  that  will  defy  the  right  of  might, 
and  in  the  name  of  justice  and  humanity,  stand  be- 
tween the  patient  victims  of  the  slaughter  pen  and 
the  vested  interests  that  coin  their  sufferings  into 
gold. 

II.     THE  DEFENDERS  OF  THE  HEBREW 
METHOD 

More  difficult  to  overcome  perhaps  than  even  the 
power  of  these  great  business  corporations  will  be 
the  opposition  that  will  confront  us  from  a  large 
and  growing  section  of  the  population  who  will  bar 
our  way  to  this  reform  in  the  name  of  their  religion. 
I  speak  here  with  great  reluctance.  I  have  never 
lifted  my  hand  or  voice  against  any  man  because 
of  his  creed  or  color  or  race.  Nothing  but  the 
imperative  call  of  duty  could  force  me  to  array 
myself  against  a  people  to  which  humanity  owes 
so  profound  a  respect  and  so  transcendent  an 
obligation  as  it  does  to  the  people  of  Israel.  The 
debt  of  mankind  to  Judaism  can  be  measured  only 
by  the  moral  grandeur  of  the  faith  it  has  transmit- 
ted to  our  modern  world.  With  every  man's  hand 
against  him  for  almost  two  thousand  years,  his 

[9] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

treatment  by  the  Christians  for  centuries  the  greatest 
shame  of  history,  the  Hebrew  has  kept  his  faith, 
maintained  his  individuality,  and  made  a  name  for 
himself  in  every  realm  of  life  where  genius  and  skill 
can  count. 

I  shrink  from  a  conflict  with  the  Hebrew.  Con- 
scious as  I  am  that  now  for  thirty  years  there  have 
arisen  occasions  when  I  have  stood  alone  in  my 
defense  of  his  character  and  his  cause,  and  knowing 
myself  as  totally  free  as  a  man  can  be  from  that 
prejudice  that  separates  and  divides  men  of  different 
races  and  creeds,  hating  and  despising  this  prejudice 
as  I  do,  I  dread  more  than  I  can  say  the  accusation 
of  being  an  anti-Semite,  an  antagonist  of  the  Jew. 
What  can  I  do  more  than  to  plead  with  these  I 
would  gladly  think  of  as  friends,  and  by  whom 
I  would  be  thought  of  in  the  same  way,  to  believe 
that  it  is  not  against  them  I  wage  this  warfare, 
but  solely  against  that  part  of  their  ritual  of 
slaughter  which  it  is  claimed  by  the  more  orthodox 
among  them,  forbids  the  stunning  of  the  animal  as 
the  very  first  step  in  the  process  of  slaughter?  I 
respect  their  sincerity.  I  believe  they  think  their 
method  humane,  though  I  am  sure  but  few  of  them 
have  ever  witnessed  it. 

"Shechita" 

At  the  heart  of  Israel's  ancient  system  of  sacrifices 
lay  the  teaching  that  it  was  the  blood  that  made 
atonement  for  the  soul.  The  blood  was  the  life. 

[10] 


IN     THE     UNITED     STATES 


This,  therefore,  the  Israelite  must  not  eat.  Around 
this  prohibition  grew  up  in  later  days,  and  outside 
their  sacred  scriptures,  a  mass  of  oral  tradition  pre- 
scribing a  ritual  for  slaughter.  These  traditional 
laws  are  embodied  in  the  Talmud.  In  the  belief 
that  the  blood  of  the  animal  would  be  most  perfectly 
drained  from  the  carcass  by  casting  the  victim, 
raising  the  hinder  part  of  its  body,  and  then  cutting 
its  throat,  the  strictest  and  minutest  regulations 
were  prescribed  governing  the  process.  These  regu- 
lations persist  to  the  present  hour. 

When,  therefore,  in  Massachusetts  we  recently 
tried  to  secure  the  passage  of  a  bill  requiring  the 
stunning  of  all  animals  before  the  use  of  the  knife, 
we  were  confronted  not  only  by  the  representatives 
of  the  packers,  as  stated  above,  but  the  room  was 
thronged  by  hundreds  of  Hebrews,  by  rabbis  clothed 
in  their  official  vestments,  and  by  Jewish  lawyers, 
and  the  cry  of  religious  persecution  was  loudly  raised 
against  us.  Not  even  Russia,  it  was  declared,  in  its 
hour  of  bitterest  anti-Semitic  hate,  had  dared  offer 
so  deadly  an  affront  to  the  Jewish  faith  as  was  now 
being  put  upon  it  in  this  land  of  boasted  civil  and 
religious  liberty. 

Since,  in  this  long  campaign  that  is  before  us,  as 
humane  organizations  we  must  meet  this  determined, 
and  no  doubt  thoroughly  conscientious,  opposition 
based  upon  religious  customs  and  traditions,  I  meet 
it  here  with  arguments  that  it  is  my  hope  will  be  of 
service  to  my  fellow-workers  who  as  yet  have  not 

[11] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE    REFORM 

been  compelled  to  give  the  subject  careful  study. 
This  opposition  must  be  faced  with  facts  as  nearly 
incontrovertible  as  possible.  The  securing  of  these 
facts  requires  months  of  time  and  correspondence, 
and  unfortunately  for  many  much  of  the  material 
comes  to  them  in  foreign  tongues.  What  the 
Massachusetts  Society  has  done  in  this  direction  is 
presented  to  you  here  in  the  conflict  that  in  your 
several  states  soon  or  late  you  must  wage  against  the 
method  of  slaughter  known  as  Shechita,  a  method 
involving,  as  I  have  repeatedly  witnessed  it,  gross 
and  needless  cruelties.  In  the  two  great  abattoirs 
in  London  and  in  several  of  the  largest  in  our  own 
country,  I  have  watched  this  method  till  the  assertion 
that  it  is  preeminently  the  humane  one  compels  me 
to  offer  a  most  positive  denial  and  protest.  It  is 
difficult  for  me  to  understand  how  any  man  unpre- 
judiced can  watch  this  manner  of  slaughter  without 
feeling  that  it  is  responsible  for  a  vast  amount  of 
wholly  unnecessary  suffering. 

First  the  animal  is  thrown  to  the  floor  by  having 
its  feet  jerked  out  from  under  it  (the  fall  has  not 
infrequently  broken  its  horns  or  otherwise  injured 
it) ;  then  its  body  is  partly  hoisted  by  a  chain  fastened 
about  a  hind  ankle,  then  an  appliance  is  gripped  about 
its  muzzle  and  its  head  is  twisted  over  until  its  face  is 
flat  against  the  floor  and  its  neck  upturned;  then  the 
long  knife  cuts  deep  across  the  throat,  and  for  a 
space,  often  running  into  several  minutes,  it  kicks 
and  plunges  in  its  wild  attempts  to  rise,  threshing 

[12] 


IN     THE     UNITED     STATES 


about  the  bloody  and  slimy  floor  in  its  dying  agony, 
—  a  sight  as  pitiable  and  heartrending  as  one  can 
well  endure.  That's  the  Jewish  method,  described 
without  exaggeration,  as  I  have  seen  it  more  than  a 
score  of  times. 

I  am  not  alone  in  this  estimate  of  the  cruelty  of 
the  Shechita.  I  have  before  me  as  I  write,  a  German 
pamphlet  entitled  "Results  of  the  Investigation  of 
the  Slaughtering  Practise  in  585  German  Abattoirs." 
This  investigation  was  made  in  1905.  To  the  ques- 
tion as  to  whether  the  Jewish  method  was  unneces- 
sarily cruel  as  compared  with  the  process  in  which  the 
animal  is  first  stunned,  90.02%  of  the  superin- 
tendents of  these  585  abattoirs  answered,  "Yes." 
Dr.  Oscar  Schwarz,  the  author  of  "Public  Abattoirs 
and  Cattle  Markets,"  a  large  German  publication, 
declares  that  by  the  Jewish  method  a  lengthened 
period  of  unnecessary  torment  is  caused,  a  period  of 
sometimes  three  or  four  minutes,  sometimes  three  or 
four  times  as  long,  through  unskilful  treatment  of 
the  animals.  Dr.  Heiss,  Abattoir  Director  of 
Straubing,  Bavaria,  says,  "We  consider  the  Shechita 
one  of  the  most  barbarous  methods  of  slaughter 
and  one  which  it  is  our  duty  to  contend  against  with 
every  means  in  our  power." 

Here  is  also  the  testimony  of  Dr.  C.  Feil,  Royal 
District  Veterinarian  and  Superintendent  of  the 
Municipal  Stock  Yards  and  Abattoir  of  Landau: 
"According  to  my  twenty-five  years  experience  in 
the  slaughter-houses  of  Speyer,  Ludwigshafen,  and 

[13] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

Landau,  not  only  the  preparation  for  the  Shechita, 
but  also  the  Shechita  itself  must  be  painful  and 
cruel,  and  therefore  ought  to  be  prohibited  by  the 
state." 

Dr.  Decker,  another  district  veterinarian,  says: 
"In  the  year  1891,  as  municipal  veterinarian,  at  the 
request  of  the  late  Dr.  Sand,  I  ascertained  for  seventy 
oxen  slaughtered  at  the  Stuttgart  Abattoirs  the 
duration  of  the  performance  of  the  shochet  cut  until 
the  suspension  of  the  corneal  reflex  action.  The 
shortest  time  was  two  minutes  fifty-two  seconds,  the 
longest  three  minutes  thirty-eight  seconds.  I  am 
therefore  of  the  opinion  that  killing  with  shooting 
or  striking  mask  as  against  Shechita  is  a  humaner 
method  of  slaughter.  Of  this  I  could  convince  any 
layman  at  any  time  in  any  slaughter-house."  Hun- 
dreds of  similar  statements  made  by  German 
veterinarians  of  long  experience  I  could  quote  if 
necessary. 

In  pamphlet  13,  of  the  publications  known  as  the 
Leipzig  Opinions,  a  document  prepared  by  Doctors 
Ramdohr  and  Schwartz,  the  statement  is  made  that 
"the  directors  of  slaughter-houses,  the  men  of 
practical  experience,  yet  almost  universally  likewise 
men  of  scientific  education,  declare,  practically 
without  exception,  that  the  slaughtering  according 
to  the  Jewish  rite,  and  thus  without  previous  stun- 
ning, must  be  regarded  at  the  present  day  as  an 
antiquated  and  cruel  method  of  killing  and  therefore 
should  be  legally  prohibited." 

[14] 


-IN     THE     UNITED     STATES 


With  this  statement  agrees  entirely  pamphlet  Ca. 
of  the  publications  known  as  the  Heidelberg  Opinions, 
which  declares  that  "the  overwhelming  majority 
of  the  460  veterinarians  consulted  demanded  the 
legal  prohibition  of  the  Jewish  method  and  the  legal 
enforcement  of  stunning  previous  to  bleeding." 

In  1911  the  Prussian  Society  of  Veterinarians 
presented  to  the  German  Legislature  a  petition  to 
the  effect  that  in  their  judgment  "the  protection 
of  the  Government  should  not  be  granted  to  the 
slaughtering  of  cattle  after  the  Jewish  ritual,  but 
that  all  animals  should  be  stunned  preceding 
slaughter." 

That  it  has  been  legally  prohibited  in  Switzerland 
is  a  fact  that  should  not  be  overlooked. 

If  it  should  be  objected  that  these  German  author- 
ities are  biased,  that  they  speak  influenced  by 
the  prejudice  of  race,  one  will  scarcely  say  that  of 
the  testimony  of  the  English  commission  which 
appears  later  on  in  this  discussion. 

As  to  the  claim  that  the  shochet  cut  causes  speedy 
unconsciousness  by  drawing  the  blood  rapidly  from 
the  brain,  Dr.  Winckler  says  —  and  many  other 
distinguished  German  veterinarians  confirm  his 
statement,  men  like  Dr.  Mittermaier,  Prof.  Hoffman, 
Dr.  Davids,  with  whom  agreed  96%  of  the  Dutch 
abattoir  superintendents  whose  opinion  was  sought, 
"The  vertebral  arteries  are  not  severed  by  the 
shochet  cut,  so  that  the  brain  still  continues  to 
receive,  as  long  as  heart  action  continues,  a  sufficient 

[15] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

quantity  of  blood,  so  that  complete  anemia  of  the 
brain  does  not  immediately  follow  the  shochet 
cut."  This  means  that  consciousness  still  con- 
tinues. 

If  you  want  the  evidence  of  your  own  senses  of  the 
cruelty  of  the  Shechita,  evidence  no  amount  of 
opinion  to  the  contrary  can  overthrow,  go  and 
witness  it  yourself.  Or,  if  you  think  you  could  not 
endure  the  sight,  answer  the  question  whether  you 
would  prefer  being  killed  by  a  blow  that  instantly 
rendered  you  unconscious  before  any  knife  was 
thrust  into  your  throat,  or,  after  having  been 
violently  thrown  to  the  floor,  then  partly  raised  up 
by  a  rope  or  chain  about  one  leg,  by  having  your 
throat  cut  and  being  left  to  bleed  to  death. 

The  Real  Issue 

The  crux  of  the  whole  matter  lies  where  the  con- 
tention is  made  that  by  the  Jewish  method,  far  more 
perfectly  than  by  bleeding  after  stunning,  the  blood 
is  drained  from  the  body.  If  this  assertion  is  not  in 
accordance  with  fact,  then  there  is  little  reason  left 
why,  on  a  religious  ground,  the  Shechita  should  be 
perpetuated  any  longer. 

Here  fortunately  we  are  not  left  to  the  mere  ipse 
dixit  of  him  who  favors  or  of  him  who  opposes  the 
method.  The  results  of  investigation,  the  scientific 
facts,  ought  to  settle  the  debate.  It  is  true  that 
we  have  the  statement  from  90%  of  the  585 
German  abattoir  superintendents  that  from  their 

[16] 


IN     THE     UNITED     STATES 


experience,  and  these  are  men  of  scientific  training, 
they  would  say  that  the  bleeding  was  no  less  thorough 
when  the  animal  was  stunned  before  slaughter  than 
when  it  was  slaughtered  without  stunning.  But 
that,  we  may  say,  is  simply  what  these  men  think  as 
the  result  of  long  and  expert  observation.  We  turn 
then  to  the  results  of  that  careful  scientific  experi- 
mentation that  has  been  made  to  determine  the 
actual  facts. 

The  thesis  of  Josef  Kallner,  M.D.  of  Merchingen 
Baden,  gives  with  great  detail  the  results  of  his 
"investigations  concerning  the  condition  after  bleed- 
ing found  in  connection  with  various  methods  of 
slaughter."  His  object  was  to  ascertain  the  per- 
centage of  blood  contained  in  the  blood  vessels  of  the 
muscles  of  animals  that  have  be*en  killed  according 
to  the  Jewish  rite  and  of  such  as  have  been  shot. 
Kallner's  investigations  followed  those  of  Dr.  Goltz 
which  had  for  their  aim  the  determining  of  the  total 
quantities  of  blood  left  in  the  carcass  after  killing 
by  these  two  methods.  Goltz'  experiments  led  him 
to  state  that  the  difference  was  too  slight  to  be 
appreciable.  Kallner's  aim  was  to  discover  espe- 
cially the  difference  in  the  amount  retained  in  the 
muscles.  He  bases  his  conclusions  on  forty  experi- 
ments on  sixteen  head  of  cattle,  eight  killed  by  the 
Jewish  method  and  eight  by  shooting.  His  full 
report  is  before  me  as  I  write. 

This  is  the  summarized  result  of  the  forty  experi- 
ments: 

[17] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

One  thousand  grams  of  meat  of  the  shot 
animals  contained,  when  the  bleed- 
ing was  over,  3.94  grams 
of  blood  of  the  blood  vessels. 

One   thousand   grams  of   meat   of   the 

animals  killed  by  the  Jewish  rite,    4.74  grams 
of  blood  of  the  blood  vessels. 

The  difference,  you  see,  strictly  speaking,  is  rela- 
tively small,  yet  the  muscles  of  the  animals  killed  by 
the  Jewish  method  contain  a  small  percentage  more. 

The  results  of  Goltz'  experiments,  referred  to  a 
moment  ago,  were  that 

In  the  case  of  cattle  having  700  kilo- 
grams   living   weight    the    loss    of 
blood  by  the  Jewish  mode  was         22.68  kilos, 
by  the  shooting  mask  22.40  kilos. 

In  the  case  of  calves  of  60  kilograms  liv- 
ing weight  the  loss  of  blood  by  the 
Jewish  rite  was  2.95  kilos, 

the  loss  after  stunning  was  3.04  kilos. 

In  the  case  of  sheep  having  a  living 
weight  of  50  kilograms  the  loss  of 
blood  by  the  Jewish  method  was        2.07  kilos, 
after  bleeding  with  previous  stunning  2.17  kilos. 

In  the  Berlin  Veterinary  Weekly  of  June  11, 1908, 
page  439,  I  find  the  statement  that,  "according  to 
the  report  of  the  city  meat  inspection  for  1906,  a 
comparative  test  was  made  at  the  Berlin  Abattoir 

[18] 


IN     THE     UNITED     STATES 


of  the  percentage  of  blood  contained  in  the  meat  of 
cattle  killed  according  to  various  methods :  (1)  With- 
out previous  stunning.  (2)  By  means  of  a  blow  on  the 
head.  (3)  By  means  of  the  Behr  shooting  apparatus." 
"It  was  found  that  there  does  not  exist  an  essential 
difference  in  the  percentage  of  blood  lost  of  the 
animals  killed  according  to  any  of  these  three 
methods,  but  that,  nevertheless,  the  animals  first  shot 
and  then  'stuck'  immediately,  would  bleed  on  the 
whole  best,  while  cattle  killed  after  the  Jewish  rite 
would  bleed  in  the  least  perfect  manner." 

I  grant  that  Dr.  Dembo,  the  well-known  advocate 
of  the  Shechita,  by  his  experiments  on  rabbits,  claimed 
to  obtain  a  different  result,  but  slaughtering  experi- 
ments with  rabbits  one  can  well  believe  can  hardly 
be  applied  to  large  domestic  animals,  particularly 
when  we  have  the  careful  statistics  to  the  contrary 
of  men  like  Goltz,  Kallner,  and  Falk,  who  dealt  with 
cattle,  sheep,  and  calves  killed  in  the  daily  routine 
of  the  abattoir. 

Now  if  it  can  be  scientifically  proved,  as  I  am  clear 
it  has  been,  that  by  the  Jewish  rite  no  more  blood  is 
actually  drawn  from  the  carcass  of  the  animal  than 
in  the  case  where  stunning  has  immediately  preceded 
the  bleeding,  then  the  ground  taken  by  our  Jewish 
friends,  that  to  avoid  the  eating  of  blood  they  must 
retain  their  ancient  custom,  ceases  to  exist,  and 
their  opposition  to  previous  stunning  where  persisted 
in  is  in  the  face  of  facts  that  unprejudiced  men 
cannot  ignore. 

[19] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

It  is  after  all  only  a  question  of  a  trifle  less  or  more 
of  blood.  The  Jewish  housewife,  after  the  meat  is  in 
her  possession,  subjects  it  to  certain  treatment  to 
extract  as  far  as  possible  the  blood  that  still  remains 
in  it.  No  one  would  claim  that  every  particle  of 
blood  even  then  had  been  eliminated.  Do  what  he 
may,  the  Hebrew  who  eats  only  kosher  meat  eats 
some  blood. 

Unfounded  Statements 

But  beyond  such  arguments  as  I  have  just  been 
dealing  with,  the  man  or  the  society  called  upon  to 
confront  the  advocates  of  the  Shechita  in  a  legislative 
hearing  will  have  to  meet  statements  that  at  the 
moment  he  cannot  deny  unless  prepared  by  the 
experience  of  others.  For  example,  at  our  hearing 
before  the  legislative  committee  in  Massachusetts  it 
was  affirmed  that  the  Berlin  Physiological  Society 
had  declared  itself  in  favor  of  the  Jewish  method  of 
slaughter.  I  wrote  to  the  chairman  of  this  Berlin 
society  and  this  is  the  reply: 

BERLIN,  March  27,  1911. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  I  have  never  heard  of  a  discussion 
by  the  Physiological  Society  of  Berlin  of  the  question 
of  Jewish  slaughtering.  In  any  event  no  resolution 
has  ever  been  passed  with  reference  to  it. 

Respectfully, 

(Signed)  EMIL  ABDERHOLDEN,  Chairman. 

Again,  it  was  affirmed  that  the  Academy  of 
Medicine,  in  Paris,  had  voted  its  approval  of  the 

[20] 


IN     THE     UNITED     STATES 


Shechita.  I  wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Academy 
and  he  sent  me  the  reports  for  the  months  of  July, 
August,  and  October,  1894,  containing  the  material 
on  which  the  affirmation  was  based.  What  were  the 
facts?  A  Dr.  Dieulafoy  presented  to  the  Academy  a 
report  upon  "A  work  of  Dr.  Dembo,  physician  of  the 
Hospital  Alexandra  at  St.  Petersburg,  relative  to  a 
comparative  study  of  the  several  methods  of  slaugh- 
tering animals."  The  report  was  discussed  at  con- 
siderable length  and  continued  at  two  subsequent 
meetings,  the  majority  of  the  speakers  opposing  from 
their  own  experiences  the  claims  of  Dr.  Dembo  as  to 
the  humaneness  and  value  of  the  Jewish  rite.  At 
the  close  of  the  report,  the  maker  of  it  made  the 
customary  motion,  I  quote,  "That  thanks  be  ad- 
dressed to  Dr.  Dembo  and  that  his  work  be  placed 
in  the  Archives  of  the  Academy."  This  proposal, 
put  in  the  usual  form  after  a  report  is  read  upon  a 
book  presented  to  the  Academy,  as  is  plain  from  other 
similar  reports  made,  was  stated  to  the  body  and 
adopted.  To  say  that  the  Academy  of  Medicine 
voted  its  acceptance  of  the  claims  of  Dr.  Dembo's 
book  is  surely  misleading. 

Again  we  were  informed  that  the  British  Medical 
Journal  of  London,  under  date  of  June  9,  1894,  also 
endorsed  the  Jewish  method  of  slaughter  as  set  forth 
in  Dr.  Dembo's  book.  I  asked  my  friend,  Mr. 
Edward  G.  Fairholme,  Secretary  of  the  Royal 
S.  P.  C.  A.,  if  he  would  report  to  me  on  the  truth  of 
this  statement.  He  replies  as  follows:  "I  have 

[21] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

looked  up  the  references  of  which  you  write  and 
find  that  they  are  not  articles  recommending  this 
method,  but  simply  reviews  of  a  certain  book  writ- 
ten by  Dr.  Dembo.  The  editor  recommends  that 
medical  men  should  read  the  book,  as  it  is  a  scientific 
description  of  this  method  of  slaughter." 

Still  another  declaration  was  made  at  that  hearing 
that  evidently  carried  great  weight  with  the  legisla- 
tive committee.  It  was  this,  that  the  meat  for  the 
German  army  was  from  animals  killed  according  to 
the  Jewish  rite,  since  such  meat,  containing  less 
blood,  would  keep  longer  and  better.  Of  course  I 
could  not  deny  the  statement.  I  wrote  immediately 
to  the  heads  of  the  three  divisions  of  the  German 
army.  Here  follow  the  replies: 

OFFICE  OF  THE  ROYAL  PRUSSIAN  SECRETARY  OF  WAR 

BERLIN,  May  12,  1911. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  In  slaughter-houses  where  meat  is 
killed  for  the  German  army  the  kosher  method  is 
not  used.  Animals  are  stunned.  In  the  case  of 
butchers  supplying  armory  kitchens  they  do  not 
object  to  their  using  kosher  killed  meat,  except 
where  the  law  forbids  it. 

(Signed)  HOFFMANN. 

OFFICE  OF  THE  ROYAL  SAXONIAN  SECRETARY  OF  WAR 

DRESDEN,  May  24,  1911. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  Yours  of  the  26th  received,  and  in 
reply  I  desire  to  say  that  the  killing  of  animals  in  the 

[22] 


IN     THE    UNITED     STATES 


German  army  slaughter-houses  is  not  after  the  Jewish 
method.  Before  the  animal  is  killed  it  is  stunned. 
It  used  to  be  done  by  giving  the  animal  a  very  strong 
blow  upon  the  front  of  the  skull,  but  since  1906  a 
shooting  apparatus  is  used. 

(Signed) 

KONIGLJCH  SACHSISCHES  KRIEGSMINISTERIUM, 

Hammer. 

ROYAL  WTJERTEMBERGIAN  SECRETARY  OP  WAR 
STUTTGART,  May  23,  1911. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  In  reply  to  yours  of  April  26th  I 
hereby  desire  to  state  that  the  slaughtering  in  the 
Saxon  army  is  not  done  by  the  Jewish  method. 
Furthermore  I  wish  to  state  that  we  do  not  believe 
in  the  Jewish  method  of  slaughtering. 

(Signed)        WUNDERLICH. 

In  the  light  of  this  correspondence  I  can 
understand  the  statements  made  to  the  contrary, 
only  on  the  ground  that  those  who  made  them  had 
been  sadly  misinformed. 

Testimony  of  English  Commission 

Still  further,  as  many  of  you  are  aware,  some  years 
ago  a  "Committee  on  Humane  Slaughtering  of 
Animals"  was  appointed  by  the  British  Admiralty 
to  investigate  and  report.  That  report,  dated  1904, 
and  covering  eighty-three  closely  printed  pages  of  a 
very  large-sized  pamphlet,  makes  as  its  first  recom- 

[23] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

mendation,  Appendix  p.  10,  that:  "All  animals,  with- 
out exception,  should  be  stunned,  or  otherwise 
rendered  unconscious,  before  blood  is  drawn." 
"This,"  the  report  continues,  "is  actually  the  law  in 
Denmark,  many  parts  of  Germany  and  Switzerland, 
and  therefore  cannot  be  considered  an  impracticable 
condition." 

With  reference  to  the  Jewish  method  of  slaughter 
the  report  says,  Appendix  pp.  10  and  11: 

"The  Committee  have  had  the  advantage  of  hear- 
ing the  views  of  the  Chief  Rabbi  of  the  Jewish  Con- 
gregations, as  well  as  of  the  President  of  the  Shechita 
Board,  on  this  subject,  and  they  have  also  studied 
the  able  treatise  prepared  by  Dr.  Dembo  in  defense  of 
the  Jewish  system.  After  the  most  careful  considera- 
tion, however,  and  after  receiving  the  Report  of  two 
such  eminent  physiologists  as  Sir  Michael  Foster  and 
Professor  Starling,  the  Committee  have  been  forced 
to  the  following  conclusions: 

"  (a)  That  the  Jewish  system  fails  in  the  primary 
requirements  of  rapidity,  freedom  from  unnecessary 
pain,  and  instantaneous  loss  of  sensibility,  and  that 
it  compares  very  unfavorably  with  the  methods  of 
stunning  recommended  by  the  Committee  in  para- 
graph 10. 

"  (6)  That  the  preliminary  operations  of  'casting' 
and  of  forcing  the  animal's  head  into  position  for  the 
cut  are  difficult,  painful,  and  objectionable  from  a 
humanitarian  standpoint. 

"  (c)  That  the  subsequent  operation  of  cutting  the 
[24] 


IN     THE     UNITED    STATES 


throat  is  at  best  an  uncertain  method  of  producing 
immediate  loss  of  sensibility,  and  frequently  causes 
great  and  unduly  prolonged  suffering  to  the  animal. 

"  (d)  That,  until  some  method  is  devised,  and 
adopted,  for  rendering  the  animal  unconscious, 
previous  to  the  'casting'  and  throat-cutting  opera- 
tions, the  Jewish  system  of  slaughtering  cattle  should 
not  be  permitted  in  any  establishment  under  Govern- 
ment control." 

It  should  be  said  also  that  in  the  great  abattoirs 
under  the  control  of  the  British  Admiralty  where 
animals  are  slaughtered  for  the  army  and  navy,  one 
of  which,  that  at  Chatham,  I  visited  last  summer, 
stunning  always  precedes  bleeding,  and  on  the  walls 
of  these  abattoirs  are  posted  rules  governing  this 
matter  and  the  claims  of  the  animal  for  humane 
treatment.  These  rules  are  worth  reproducing  here. 
What  a  contrast  to  anything  one  ever  saw  posted 
in  a  great  American  abattoir! 

"1.  All  animals  awaiting  slaughter  are  to  be 
kept  as  far  as  possible  from  any  contact  with  the 
sights  or  smells  of  the  slaughter-house  itself. 

"2.  All  animals  are  to  be  screened  off  from 
their  fellows  when  being  slaughtered. 

"3.  All  animals  are  to  be  stunned  or  otherwise 
rendered  unconscious  before  blood  is  drawn. 

"4.  Immediately  after  the  removal  of  each 
carcass,  and  before  the  next  animal  is  brought 
in,  the  slaughter  chamber  is  to  be  thoroughly 
flushed  down  and  cleansed  of  all  traces  of  blood. 

[251 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

"The  chief  object  of  the  foregoing  Regulations  is 
to  ensure  that  animals  are  spared  all  unnecessary 
suffering  before  death.  The  strictest  care  is  there- 
fore to  be  taken  to  comply  with  the  spirit  as  well  as 
with  the  letter  of  these  instructions,  and  master  butchers 
will  be  held  responsible  for  their  rigid  observance" 

Other  Phases  of  the  Reform 

How  many  phases  of  the  subject  I  have  left 
untouched,  only  those  can  appreciate  who  are 
familiar  with  it.  I  have  said  nothing  of  the  crying 
need  for  the  abolition  of  the  private  slaughter-house, 
with  its  opportunity  for  cruelty  and  unsanitary 
conditions  to  escape  detection.  The  public  abattoir, 
scientifically  constructed,  and  under  state,  county,  or 
municipal  control,  as  in  Germany,  should  alone  be 
deemed  permissible  in  a  civilized  community. 

I  have  made  no  reference  to  details  in  the  one  great 
reform,  such  for  example  as  that,  in  the  rendering 
unconscious  of  the  animal  at  the  time  of  slaughter 
we  must  seek  for  this  purpose  a  device  that  shall  be 
at  once  humane,  simple,  inexpensive,  capable  of 
rapid  operation,  and  easily  manipulated  by  persons  of 
ordinary  strength.  Such  a  device  I  do  not  believe 
has  yet  been  invented.  Satisfactory  as  the  present 
bolt-pistol  may  be,  in  countries  where  they  are  not 
so  eternally  on  the  run  to  save  each  second  of  time, 
it  will  not  answer  here.  In  our  country  an  imple- 
ment must  be  had,  not  only  satisfactory  in  other 

[26] 


IN    THE    UNITED     STATES 


respects,  but  one  that  can  destroy  at  least  a  dozen 
animals  without  being  reloaded  or  cleaned. 

I  have  tried,  since  this  conflict  is  before  the 
humane  societies  of  the  country  and  all  of  us  must 
have  share  in  it  if  we  are  to  be  worthy  of  our  trust, 
to  present  here,  in  as  brief  and  condensed  a  form  as 
possible,  some  of  the  results  of  my  own  investigations 
and  experiences  that  they  may  be  of  use  to  my  fel- 
low-workers. Any  further  assistance  in  this  direction 
that  I  can  ever  render  will  be  at  their  command. 

The  Thing  to  Do 

This  last  word.  How  are  we  most  effectively  to 
undertake  this  reform  whose  end  is  national  legisla- 
tion demanding  that  all  animals,  without  exception, 
shall  be  stunned,  or  otherwise  rendered  unconscious 
before  blood  is  drawn? 

No  single  society  can  win  this  battle.  The  victory 
will  come  only  when  all  the  humane  organizations 
of  the  land  are  marshaled  in  a  solid  phalanx  against 
the  opposing  forces.  It  is,  therefore,  upon  this 
American  Humane  Association  that  the  duty  and 
the  burden  of  the  campaign  lies.1  Suggest  whatever 
methods  of  procedure  seem  to  you  wisest,  but  as  a 
first  step  why  should  not  a  committee,  appointed  by 
this  body,  and  headed  by  its  resolute  and  able  presi- 
dent, lay  this  whole  matter  at  once  before  the 
President  of  the  United  States  and  seek  the  crea- 

1  This  pamphlet  was  prepared  as  an  address  for  the  national 
meeting  of  the  American  Humane  Association. 

[27] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

tion  of  a  commission  to  inquire  into  the  prevailing 
methods  of  slaughter  and  to  make  such  recommenda- 
tions to  Congress  as  the  facts  warrant?  Meanwhile, 
each  separate  organization  in  its  respective  state  or 
community  can  render  this  reform  no  greater  service 
than  by  agitating  in  every  possible  way  this  urgent 
question,  by  keeping  it  before  the  public  mind  by 
every  available  means  of  publicity,  while  by  personal 
investigation  and  study  its  officers  fit  themselves  to 
enter  intelligently  and  effectively  into  the  hardest 
struggle  with  vested  interests  and  religious  opposition 
that  has  ever  engaged  the  attention  of  our  cause  in 
the  United  States. 


[28] 


APPENDIX 


J 


UST  as  this  pamphlet  was  going  to  press  I  came 
upon  the  article  which  follows,  in  the  Animals9 
Guardian,  London,  England.  It  is  so  pertinent  to 
this  discussion  that  I  place  it  here,  by  the  kind 
permission  of  the  editor  of  that  excellent  magazine. 
It  confirms  my  own  belief  that  it  is  a  relatively  small 
number  of  Jews  who  would  insist  upon  perpetuating 
this  ancient  mode  of  slaughter. 

"SHECHITA" 

BY  J.  H.  LEVY 

WHAT  is  Shechita?  It  is  the  Hebrew  word  for 
"slaughter,"  and  technically  means  the  body  of  doc- 
trine and  practise  relating  to  the  killing  of  animals 
for  food,  by  orthodox  Jews.  The  ch  in  Shechita  is 
pronounced  as  in  the  German  word  buck,  and  the 
vowels  as  on  the  Continent;  but  there  is  no  consistent 
transliteration  of  Hebrew  in  use  among  Jews.  For 
instance,  trifa  and  kosher  —  of  which  more  anon  — 
are  pronounced  in  English  fashion,  and  their  trans- 
literation cannot  be  reconciled  with  that  of  Shechita. 
I  would  transliterate  these  three  words:  sh'hhiytah, 
kasher,  frefah ;  but  I  shall  employ  the  transliteration 
of  them  in  common  use  among  Jews,  in  this  article. 

[29] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

Every  diligent  reader  of  the  Bible  knows  that  very 
strict  rules  were  laid  down  by  Ancient  Judaism  —  the 
Judaism  of  the  Pentateuch  and  the  Temple  —  as  to 
what  might  be  eaten  and  what  might  not.  The 
Eleventh  Chapter  of  Leviticus  is  entirely  devoted  to 
pointing  out  what  may  and  what  may  not  be  used 
for  food,  among  the  beasts,  birds,  fishes,  and  creeping 
things;  and  the  language  used  is  of  the  most  emphatic 
description.  It  would  be  difficult  to  put  into  more 
forcible  words  the  concluding  verses  of  this  chapter, 
which  clearly  prescribe  the  strict  observance  of 
dietary  laws  as  a  condition  of  holiness. 

But  this  does  not  stand  alone;  and  the  provisions 
formulated  by  it  are  not  the  only  ones  which  Israelites 
were  expected  to  observe.  The  fat  of  oxen  and 
sheep  was  also  forbidden  (Leviticus  vii.,  23);  though 
I  have  never  come  across  a  Jew,  or  even  heard  of  one, 
who,  in  modern  times,  eats  beef  and  mutton  and 
abstains  on  principle  from  their  fat.  In  Genesis  ix., 
3—4,  every  moving  thing  that  lives  is  given  for  food 
to  Noah  and  his  descendants;  but  blood,  which  is 
said  to  be  its  life,  is  forbidden.  The  word  nefesh, 
which  is  here  translated  "life,"  is  the  same  word 
which  is  translated  "soul"  in  Genesis  ii.,  7. 

No  Israelite  was  permitted  to  eat  "that  which 
dieth  of  itself  or  is  torn"  —  in  Hebrew  trifa  —  "to 
defile  himself  therewith"  (Leviticus  xxii.,  8).  In 
process  of  time,  the  meaning  of  this  word  trifa,  torn, 
has  been  extended  so  as  to  include  all  proscribed  food, 
the  allowed  food  being  denominated  kosher;  and  the 

[30] 


IN     THE     UNITED     STATES 


tabooed  dietary  comprises  not  only  all  animals  and 
animal  products  coming  within  the  above  prohibi- 
tions, but  all  mammals  and  birds  which  are  diseased 
or  not  killed  according  to  a  strictly  defined  ritual. 
Among  the  chief  objects  of  that  ritual  were  and  are 
the  avoidance  of  the  slightest  maiming  or  tearing  of 
the  flesh  of  the  slaughtered  animal,  and  the  rapid 
bleeding  of  the  animal  to  death.  If,  after  the  animal 
is  killed,  a  notch  be  found  in  the  knife  with  which  he 
was  slaughtered,  the  animal  cannot  be  used  as  Jewish 
food;  and,  a  fortiori,  all  animals  killed  in  the  chase 
are  forbidden. 

Now  I  do  not  think  there  can  be  any  doubt  that, 
over  a  considerable  period,  this  ritual  must  have 
largely  tended  in  a  hygienic  and  humanitarian  direc- 
tion. We  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  surging  up  of 
consideration  for  animals  in  the  moral  consciousness 
of  mankind  is  almost  altogether  a  modern  develop- 
ment. The  Jewish  dietary  code  was  at  least  a 
recognition  that  what  we  eat  and  drink  is  not  a 
matter  of  moral  or  physiological  indifference.  I 
venture  to  predict  that  the  spirit  of  that  code  will 
survive,  whatever  change  may  be  necessary  in  its 
embodiment;  for  the  dictum  that  diet  and  duty  are 
intimately  associated  is  one  which  no  sound  moralist 
would  now  dispute,  and  the  importance  of  which  is 
coming  more  and  more  to  the  front. 

Jews  may,  therefore,  feel  some  pride  in  this  matter; 
and  if  the  time  has  now  come  for  some  modification 
of,  or  addition  to,  their  practise,  they  would  do  wisely 

[31] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

to  take  it  in  good  part,  to  endeavor  to  keep  in  the 
ethical  van  in  this  respect,  and  not  to  wait  till  change 
is  forced  on  them  by  legislation.  Two  influences 
have  been  at  work  to  alter  the  relative  position  of 
Shechita.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  the  tendency  of  all 
ritual  to  decay,  and  to  shrivel  up  into  dead  cere- 
monial. On  the  other  hand,  the  technique  of 
slaughter  for  human  food,  outside  of  the  Jewish 
method,  has  advanced,  especially  by  the  use  of  the 
stunning  instrument,  which  produces  temporary  in- 
sensibility, during  which  the  animal  can  be  painlessly 
killed. 

The  Jewish  method  (and  not  this  alone)  has  thus 
become  cruel  (because  it  involves  pain  which  now 
can  be  avoided)  not  so  much  with  regard  to  the  actual 
killing  of  the  animal,  as  in  getting  it  into  position  for 
slaughter  —  "casting,"  as  it  is  called.  It  can  easily 
be  seen  that  the  throwing  down  of  a  spirited  ox,  in 
order  to  cut  its  throat,  may  give  rise  to  a  contest 
between  man  and  beast  of  the  most  painful  descrip- 
tion. By  the  application  of  the  stunning  instrument 
to  its  head  for  an  instant  before  the  commencement 
of  Shechita,  this  brutal  struggle  would  be  avoided, 
and  the  slaughter  in  Jewish  fashion  would  then  be 
unobjectionable,  if  properly  carried  out.  The  use 
of  the  stunning  instrument  should  be  general,  whether 
the  animal  is  killed  by  the  knife  or  the  pole-axe  — 
whether  the  animal  is  an  ox,  a  sheep,  or  a  pig. 

What  is  likely  to  be  the  Jewish  attitude  towards 
this  reform?  I  believe  that,  if  the  Jews  of  Western 

[32] 


IN    THE     UNITED    STATES 


Europe  and  America  could  be  polled  on  it,  a  very 
large  majority  would  vote  in  its  favor.  But  this 
referendum  is  impossible.  As  the  Rev.  Dr.  Kohler, 
the  Rabbi  of  the  Temple  Beth  El  of  New  Yorky  has 
said:  "The  great  majority  of  West  European  Jews 
have  broken  away  from  the  dietary  laws."  But 
these  would  probably  stand  aside,  as  they  usually  do 
on  such  matters,  and  leave  their  race  to  be  repre- 
sented by  its  more  backward  specimens.  Of  these, 
some  would  probably  vote  for  the  reform,  if  it  were 
adequately  pressed  on  them  from  outside;  others 
would  resist  to  the  last.  This  remnant  would  consist 
of  two  classes:  (1)  Rabbinical  zealots  who  resist  all 
ritual  change,  and  (2)  A  few  Zionists,  whose  object 
is  not  religious  but  nationalist.  They  may  be  Free- 
thinkers, like  Herzl  and  Nordau,  their  most  con- 
spicuous leaders ;  but  all  ceremonial  which  segregates 
Jews  from  then*  non- Jewish  neighbors,  and  prevents 
then1  social  and  political  assimilation  to  the  peoples 
among  whom  they  dwell,  plays  the  Zionist  game; 
and  they  therefore  support  an  extreme  orthodoxy 
whether  they  feel  with  it  or  not. 

These  two  comparatively  small  classes  1  may  be  ex- 
pected to  make  a  show  of  opposition  altogether  out  of 
proportion  to  their  numerical  strength;  but  the  great 
body  of  Israelites  will  easily  be  persuaded  when  once 

1  At  the  recent  Conference  of  the  Central  Committee  of  the  Zionist 
Organization,  at  Berlin,  Herr  Adolf  Stand  said:  "Not  one  per  cent,  of 
the  Jews  in  the  world  are  Zionists."  But  not  all  even  of  this  minute 
minority  would  act  as  above  described. 

[33] 


SLAUGHTER-HOUSE     REFORM 

the  Gentile  world  has  been  convinced.  It  is  here  the 
real  stress  lies.  The  problem  is  not  a  Jewish  one. 
Eight  years  have  passed  away  since  our  Admiralty 
Committee  reported  that  "all  animals,  without 
exception,  should  be  stunned,  or  otherwise  rendered 
unconscious,  before  blood  is  drawn,"  and  that  "in 
the  interests,  not  only  of  humanity,  but  of  sanitation, 
order,  and  ultimate  economy,  it  is  highly  desirable 
that,  where  circumstances  permit,  private  slaughter- 
houses should  be  replaced  by  public  abattoirs." 
But  nothing  has  been  done,  because  the  public 
conscience  has  not  been  aroused  on  this  point.  The 
problem  is  a  much  broader  one  than  that  of  Shechita. 
It  is  one  of  the  general  adoption  of  humane  methods 
of  slaughter,  in  place  of  those  which  are  now  a  dis- 
grace and  a  demoralization  to  mankind. 

"THE  JEWISH  CHRONICLE'* 

The  same  author,  writing  in  the  Jewish  Chronicle 
(August  30,  1912),  says: 

"A  mode  of  slaughter  which  yesterday  was  legit- 
imate might  today  be  illegitimate;  for  so  soon 
as  any  means  is  discovered  for  abolishing  any  portion 
of  the  pain  of  slaughter,  the  infliction  of  that  pain 
becomes  unnecessary,  and  therefore  cruel.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  the  use  of  the  stunning  instrument 
has  become  imperative.  I  hope  that  some  of  the 
more  enlightened  Rabbis  will  see  this,  that  they  will 
authorize  its  adoption  as  a  preliminary  of  Shechita, 

[34] 


IN     THE     UNITED     STATES 


and  that  a  struggle  that  is  doing  vast  injury  to  the 
Jewish  name  will  thus  be  ended.  The  Rabbinical 
prohibition  of  anything  being  done  to  the  *  beast' 
as  a  preliminary  to  Shechita  was  probably  intended 
to  prevent  any  mutilation  of  the  animal  precedent 
to  slaughter;  and  the  Rabbis  may  therefore  well 
authorize  the  use  of  the  stunning  instrument,  not 
only  as  not  coming  within  the  spirit  of  this  prohibi- 
tion, but  as  serving  to  carry  out  the  very  object  for 
which  this  rule  was  framed." 

Mr.  Israel  Zangwill,  the  world-famed  Jewish 
novelist,  has  written  to  Mr.  Levy:  "I  think  you  take 
a  very  sensible  view  of  the  Shechita  question";  and 
the  Rev.  Harry  S.  Lewis,  M.A.,  Minister  of  the 
Congregation  of  British  Jews  at  Manchester,  has 
written:  "May  I  add  a  word  to  express  my  admira- 
tion for  your  action  at  the  Zurich  Congress.  The 
misrepresentations  to  which  you  have  been  exposed 
will  not  deceive  any  persons  of  good  will.  As  long 
as  animals  are  killed  for  food  at  all,  they  should  be 
killed  with  as  little  pain  as  possible,  all  prejudices 
notwithstanding. ' ' 


[35] 


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